


The Ballerina

by MotherMaple



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: And also Toy Story, Doll Museum, F/M, Fluff, Magic, inspired by fairy tales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23265466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotherMaple/pseuds/MotherMaple
Summary: In her little tulip dress, she dances the Waltz of the Flowers, and he loves her.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 28
Kudos: 65





	The Ballerina

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarknessAroundUs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarknessAroundUs/gifts).



She dances, the same perfect pirouettes with her tiny gilt toe-shoes pointed and her graceful white hands high over her shiny yellow head, every day. Safe in her velvet palace, all soft pink and dark mahogany, still and quiet until someone opens the box and she emerges with her softly flushed cheeks and her serene little smile. They watch her every day, strangers who coo over her china skirt that looks like tulip petals, and her china waist with golden laces and the pretty tinkling noise the cylinder makes as she twirls, never peeking at her reflection in the oval mirror. 

Perfect, always. Lovely, always. 

His, sometimes. 

He sits in his wooden chair, across the dusty museum floor, and watches the people move around; they admire the dolls in their cases- the mechanical farm that comes to life with the flick of a switch, the old silk dresses with stitches too small to see and lace too fragile to handle, the tiny chess set on his table, the newspaper no bigger than a postage stamp with headlines that never change, the china tea set in his mother’s cabinet with rosebuds painted by a brush with only one hair. 

And, of course, the ballerina. 

The people flock to her, every day, the most beautiful doll in the museum, so delicate that she lives behind glass, so valuable that no one but the most careful staff can touch her. In her little tulip dress, she dances the Waltz of the Flowers, and he loves her.

Late at night, when the people are gone and the blinds are drawn, the little museum comes to life. The farmer stretches his back, his wife puts down her basket of chicken feed, and the children chase each other around the paddock. His mother stops posing in the drawing-room and puts her feet up on an uncut moquette pouffe in the library.

And he, the little wooden man with his funny nose and his little knitted cap, jumps down from the tall Victorian dollhouse and makes the long walk across the floor to the locked glass case. A fairy doll on the shelf waves her wand and the door swings open, and he starts the slippery climb up the inside of the hinges. When he reaches her shelf, he takes a moment to straighten his cap and brush down his blouse, and then he opens the heavy lid of the music box. 

Her china body rises with the lid, her toes pointed and her hands high above her head, and he waits until the sliver of moonlight reaches her tiny china heart. She glows and a little shiver starts at the tips of her fingers, life and warmth sparkling all the way down to her shoes until her skin is soft and her hair is blonde and her little tulip dress moves like silk. 

He adores her, watching rapt as her eyes fill with intelligence and her smile finds him waiting for her. Then she holds out her hands and he lifts her down from her velvet platform, her waist disappearing under his fingers and her tinkling laugh sounding like the music she dances to. 

At night her lips are as soft and welcoming he could hope for and she whispers to him, always, “I’m so glad you came.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, Jandy, for being the one I trust with the First Look at all my stories <3


End file.
